The company filed an $11.9 million multifamily deed of trust, assignment of leases and rents, security agreement and fixture filing on The Woods at Ridgeway, a 568-unit complex whose address is listed as 6277 Lake Arbor Drive and 6206 Knight Arnold Road.

And it filed a $6.1 million multifamily deed of trust, assignment of leases and rents, security agreement and fixture filing on Waterstone Landing, a 378-unit complex whose address is listed as 3417 Ridgeway Road and 9 Ridgeway Road.

RRE bought The Woods at Ridgeway – formerly the Wyndridge Apartments – in 2009 for $9.5 million and then renovated the multifamily property.

The Woods includes two parcels, according to the Shelby County Assessor of Property. The 6277 Lake Arbor Drive parcel contains 260 units on 26.7 acres; its 2012 appraisal is $4.9 million. And the 6206 Knight Arnold Road parcel contains 284 units on 23.2 acres; its 2012 appraisal is $4.6 million.

Other measures of home prices have also increased. The Standard & Poor’s/Case Shiller index rose in July compared with a year ago, the second straight yearly increase after two years of declines. And an index compiled by a federal housing regulator has also reported annual increases.

Housing prices are rising in most areas, according to CoreLogic. Only 20 large cities out of 100 tracked showed declines in the 12 months ending in August. That compared with 26 in July.

States with the biggest price increases in the past 12 months were Arizona, Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Hawaii. Prices soared 18.2 percent in Arizona, partly because the supply of homes for sale is low and foreclosure sales have slowed. Prices have risen 10.4 percent in Idaho.

The states with the biggest declines were Rhode Island, Illinois, New Jersey, Alabama and Connecticut.

CoreLogic said its measure of prices is 26.7 percent below a nationwide peak in April 2006.

Still, the broader economy will likely benefit from rising home values. When prices rise, people typically feel wealthier and spend more. And more Americans are likely to put their houses up for sale, which could further energize the market.

– The Associated Press

Crye-Leike's Brown Receives State Association Award

Steve Brown, executive vice president of Crye-Leike Realtors Inc., recently received the 2012 Presidential Award presented by the Tennessee Association of Realtors at the 93rd annual convention in Kingsport, Tenn.

The Presidential Award is bestowed annually by the association’s president - currently Sue Stinson Turner, also of Crye-Leike - to one individual for their service to the leadership of the industry.

Brown has been a licensed real estate broker for many years, and he has experience in corporate relocation and new construction. He is a lifetime member of the Crye-Leike and Memphis Area Association of Realtors Multi-Million Dollar Clubs, and he serves on the National Association of Realtors board of directors as well as the national association’s professional standards committee.

Davis, based in Nashville, most recently was managing director of Guggenheim Securities LLC and previously was head of the financial institutions group at FTN Equity Capital Markets. While at Mercer Capital in the 1990s, Davis led its financial institutions practice, providing valuation and transaction advisory services.

– Andy Meek

State Officials React to Critical Parole Audit

A member of the Tennessee Senate Judiciary Committee says an audit of the Board of Probation and Parole casts doubt on the effectiveness of parolee supervision.

A performance audit by the state comptroller’s office showed at least 82 people parole officers said they checked on between January 2011 and May 2012 were, in fact, dead. One of them died more than 19 years ago.

Sen. Brian Kelsey, a Germantown Republican, said the audit makes him wonder how many live probationers are being supervised.

Comptroller Justin Wilson echoed the concern, telling The Tennessean the results made him anxious about the supervision of parolees living in people’s communities.

The board responded, saying all personnel will be trained to better detect deceased offenders by the end of the year.

– The Associated Press

Feds Throw Support Behind Lawsuit Against JPMorgan

The federal government on Tuesday, Oct. 2, threw its support behind a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase accusing Bear Stearns, the investment bank JPMorgan bought in 2008, of engaging in massive fraud in deals involving billions in residential mortgage-backed securities.

At a news conference, acting Associate Attorney General Tony West credited a federal-state working group of law enforcement agencies created by President Barack Obama in 2009 with assembling evidence in the lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general’s office.

The Obama administration has been under heavy political pressure to hold major Wall Street players accountable for the nation’s biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression. Bear Stearns was sold to JPMorgan Chase in 2008.

John Walsh, the U.S. Attorney for Colorado, said 11 federal prosecutors interviewed more than 40 significant market participants in the investigation by New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and that the Justice Department provided a dozen investigative analysts to review millions of pages of documents.

The lawsuit alleges that Bear Stearns led its investors to believe that the loans in its portfolio of residential mortgage-backed securities had been carefully evaluated and would be monitored. The suit alleges Bear Stearns failed to do either.

– The Associated Press

Add Medicare to Overhaul, Arkansas Asks Feds

Arkansas is asking the federal government to add Medicare to the state’s overhaul of how insurers reimburse providers for medical care.

Medicaid is already a part of the state payment overhaul, which shifts Arkansas from “fee-based” medicine where insurers and the government pay providers for each test and procedure. The state instead hopes to pay partnerships of local providers for “episodes” of care rather than each individual treatment.

Medicare provides medical coverage for people 65 and older, while Medicaid covers mostly the poor and disabled.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports the state announced Monday it’s applied for a $60 million grant as part of the overhaul. The Arkansas Department of Human Services says Medicare serves 492,000 people.